pup won't swim

[follow maggie]

I have a lab pup about 7 months old.  She finds birds, flushes and retrieves them.  I can't get her to swim, though.  She'll go in the water to her belly and stop.  I've tried throwing dummies and toys in the water gradually deeper, but she won't fetch them- just watch them float away.  Does anyone have pointers to help me get her to swim?  I'd like to avoid dragging her out so she has to swim, but maybe that's the only way?

[GoldTip]

Will she come out in the water to you if you are out in the water?  I would definitely not drag her into the water and force swimming on her.  Also, do you have any friends whose dogs swim, and that your dog enjoys playing with?  If so start playing fetch with your dog and the other dog, they always seem to compete when you do that, then move them both to the water and keep playing.

[zamphier]

I had the same situation with my dog.  I ended up rowing her out to a small island, dropping her off and rowing back.  The first time I did this, she was swimming before I made it back    Obviously, make sure it's not too far of a swim for her.

[Antlershed]

My GSP was like that at first, but being around a dog who loved to swim at a young age was a great thing for him. He was doing water retrieves (just the rubber dummy) at 5 months old. Like was also mentioned, if you can get out in the water, that helps too.

[follow maggie]

Thanks for the tips.  I'll put my waders on and see if she'll go in with me.

[rainshadow1]

These guys are all over it... never force a pup or you'll establish a mental barrier. Make it fun. Competition with another dog is ideal. Just another hurdle to jump over!

[Antlershed]

One of the first times my pup swam, besides having the other dog there swimming, we were at the beach and it didn't get dog swimming depth for at least 100' out. I took off running and by the time I was knee deep he was on my heels so I just kept going, and he was swimming around the rest of the day.

[tlbradford]

I always tossed them into some shallow water and about 10 feet out, at about 5-6 months of age. And when they swam back to me I tossed them back out again.  Then the next day I would start throwing stuff into the water.  It sounds like I am in the minority though.  Before you call the humane society, i don't use shock collars.

[Machias]

  Won't call the HS on you but like with all methods some are better then others.  There are alot of less stressful ways to introduce pups to swimming then thorwing them through the air into the water, IMO.  Probably one of the best ways is with another lab who "loves" the water.  Best thing is not to make a big deal about and they'll be swimming in no time.  P.S. Nothing wrong with a shock collar if used properly.

[PacificNWhunter]

I had allot of luck getting in the water myself and letting my pup follow..He was really cautious around water for the first year, now I can't keep him out...and he's a pointer.

[Shannon]

If your dog likes to fetch try buying a live duck and clip its wings and let her fetch it close to shore. I did the boat thing and the dog was following me all over the lake in no time. She swims on here own just to check things out now. I looked out at the lake the other day and she was 100 yards off shore just tooling around. Good luck.

[yelp]

I agree with shannon a live bird thrashing in the water may be the key here to break her.

[Intruder]

I've always introduced my pups at a super young age.  Put on the waders and carried them out to a depth where they could just touch bottom, pointed them toward shore and let em go.  Do that a couple times w/ alot of praise and excitement.  Then, gradually take them deeper so that when you ease em in they're floating.  They'll paddle a few times and reach bottom.  Then go deeper...... you get the idea.  Very low stress and fun for the dog.  I would say all my dogs after 1 session of doing this would freely enter the water on their own.

Not sure if this would work w/ a pup as old as yours... might be worth a try though.  I definitely agree with the other folks about getting in the water w/ em though.

[popeshawnpaul]

My dog would do anything for food.  Hold out a treat in deep water and see if she will swim to you...? 

[Wayne1]

Intruder and myself are exactly on the same page...  ande you can never over do the praise and excitement. Suprised that passer byer's never had me committed.

[k_dub]

 Ya i would deffinatly not drag her out there, my first time with my dog swimming i went out for a little swim and he just followed me right out there. ever since then I have a harder time getting him out of the water then going in.

[flashover52]

I've had good success getting my 'pet' dog (non hunting or lab) to swim by giving her a life jacket. Once she realized she could float, I couldn't get her out. I then worked her out of the life jacke and now we no longer use it.

She'll retreive nearly anything, stick, ball, kids, ice cubes from fresh or salt water.

With a little more time/patience, I'm sure your pup will turn into a fine dog. I also had to add a picture of a buddy's lab from a trip we had down the Snake River. Old Jake waited by the shore for hours once we pulled into camp and finally came back to the fire proudly with his fish. Poor Jake didn't understand catch and release as he sat by the shore for another couple of hours until bedtime after this poor fish was tossed back to swim another day.

[follow maggie]

The bird idea worked great last weekend.  I took her to Cook Canyon Hunt Club in Ellensburg to get her on some birds.  She went in to what I thought was to play in the thickets, but there was a fair amount of water in there.  There was a lot of splashing, and she came out soaking wet- and with an un-shot pheasant in her mouth.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I've been using several of them at different times, and she's geting better about going swimming.

[follow maggie]

Thanks, all, for the tips.  I used most of them, and now I can't keep Maggie out of the water.  She's in it every chance she gets.  Had her out for the pheasant opener this weekend and got this picture of her first blind retrieve.

[swanny]

Great looking dog and glad she finally got wet!

We had the same problem with our most recent addition, who is now a year old. He would wade but would not go in. All it took as our annual August vacation at Lake Roosevelt and seeing the 6 year old swimming around and he went right in. We couldn't keep him out then! Now it's just getting him to calm down in the boat, scares the crap out of him!

[Clumber]

Just want to share with you the story of our Ramona and swimming.  Firstly, it is important to know that the reason she is named Ramona is that our litter theme was Children's Book titles, and she was the 1st of the litter to do EVERYTHING.  First to have her eyes open, first to escape the whelping  pen (again.. and again...) first to try solid food, and so on... So she became "Comedy's Ramona the Brave".  She was our 2nd pick, and we decided to keep her sister, Stella (from Stellaluna) and sell Mona.  Since we are a rare breed and since we have litters only rarely, we have a pretty long waiting list and figured placing Mo would be very easy.  Oddly though - it was not.  The folks on our lists wanted to Show her, but not hunt her.... and we knew that Mo simply needed to be a hunting dog.  In fact, if Clumbers are ever eligible to run AKC Field trials, I would bet a good $$$ that Mona would be the first Clumber field trial champion.  She is THAT serious a hunter.  She is also about the furthest from the stereotypical slow Clumber.  No couch potato in her soul at all.

Now since we weren't keeping her, we didn't put her through the same intense training we did her sister.  Don't want to bond too tightly with a pup that is leaving, right?  Well as more and more homes were rejected by us (either they just wanted a bench dog, or 'red flags' like unenthusiastic spouses, bad refs, esp. from their vet... and so on) it started to become a bit silly, and before I knew it - Mona was nearly 5 months old and dangit, she was MY DOG NOW.  This coincided with the start of hunt test season.  So we intensified her training and discovered that she had no clue how to swim.  None at all.

She would do the drowning dog paddle all the way out to the bird... and usually her butt would then come up as she grabbed the bird.  Not always, though.  As we started entering her in tests, she would be just fantastic on land - usually earning all 9s and 10s, and then would not be able to get the bird back in time on the water.  And here's the incredible part -- she always tried as hard as she could, and never gave up.  You could tell she would be getting tired, or even sometimes was really quite afraid... but she soldiered on.  More than once, either a judge or a member of the gallery would start to take off their shoes to go save my dog, and I would stop them with "Don't you dare give up on her until she gives up on herself.  Let her work it out."  And she never gave up, and when she was too tired to keep at it, would come back to shore and let me leash her up.

She passed some, NQ'd more but always tried as hard as she could. For 2 hunt test seasons.  I can train my dogs to do a lot of stuff, but learning to swim is sort of something they need to figure out.  Today, Mona is a swimming fiend!  She loves to swim, and will even do it just recreationally, no bird required.  She would already have her SH except her idiot handler has managed to blow her off birds the last 3 tests in a row. (Idiot handler = me)

So, my note here is that they may not catch on right away, but let them work it out if they are trying.  Give them as many good fair opportunities and experience as you possibly can.  Her sister Stella learned a lot younger, and for her the trick was taking her to a warm pond near Ocean Shores and having her mother (Jube) start retrieving a bumper.  Once Stella got her feet into the warm water, she couldn't resist swimming out to see her mom, and never looked back.  The other 2 in that litter, and our boy Briggs we got from a good friend at nearly the same age as our litter - they never had an issue at all with swimming - just hopped in and went after the bumper/bird/stick. Oh and, might be a good idea to raise all the pups with the same training intensity until they actually leave. 

Good job with Maggie, and yes NEVER force them.  I did that once with a dog (not a Clumber) and she would NEVER EVER trust me again near water.  Even when she learned to swim, she wouldn't go near the water if I was "too close" to her.  Heartbreaking and in her 14 years with me, I never could earn that trust back near water.

~ Tracy (whose best friend and touchstone buddy is Ramona, who also passed OFA when her sister didn't, and managed to turn out a better Clumber than her sister too!  Yeah, I am an idiot.    )